Chapter 9: The Court's Witness
The air in the courtroom had changed, shifted into something electric and volatile the moment Jess burst through those doors. Her words hung there, unfinished, a bomb with a sputtering fuse—"It's a wager between the courts!"—and the entire chamber seemed to lean forward, hungry for the rest of that sentence.
Alban moved like a viper. His hand shot out, fingers contorting around a gesture that shouldn't have been possible for a creature of flesh and bone, and a pulse of sickly green light erupted from his palm. The spell hit Mandy square in the chest before she could blink, before she could flinch, before she could even process the fact that something was wrong.
The world went hot. Liquid. There was no other word for it. Her bones turned to magma and her blood to burning wine, and every nerve ending in her body suddenly had a purpose, a singular screaming focus that obliterated every other thought. She heard Jess gasp, saw her clutch at her own stomach, saw her dark eyes go wide with the unmistakable dawning horror of someone about to lose control of her own body.
"Wha—" Jess's voice cracked, broke, reformed into something low and husky. "Mandy, what's—"
The spell hit her too. Mandy saw the green light wash over Jess's charcoal suit, saw it ripple like water across a stone, and then she couldn't think anymore. Couldn't think about her parents, about the trial, about the Key of Shared Breath glinting on Alban's chest. There was only Jess. Jess and the impossible, overwhelming need to touch her.
The courtroom watched as Mandy Williamson crossed the floor, her movements jerky and sharp, like a puppet with tangled strings. Jess backed away, but her feet were clumsy, her resolve crumbling in real time.
"Don't," Jess breathed, but her voice had no conviction in it. "Don't, we're in front of everyone, my career, the Order, please—"
Mandy didn't speak. Speech was beyond her. She reached out and grabbed Jess's lapels, dragging her close, and kissed her with a hunger that surprised them both. Jess made a muffled sound against her lips—half protest, half surrender—and then her hands were in Mandy's messy brown hair, pulling her deeper, pulling her impossible closer.
The gallery erupted. Shouts, gasps, the scrape of benches as people rose to get a better view. Someone—it might have been Maryam—let out a low, appreciative whistle.
Jan leaned forward in her seat, Godfrey squirming in her lap, her green eyes gleaming. "Well, damn. How did the Green Moons let that one get away? Look at the rack on her. Look at it."
Fatima gave a long-suffering sigh, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Jan, the other Orders are allowed to have attractive people too. It's not a violation of the Green Moon charter."
"I know, I know, but this is a Golden Wand agent. They're supposed to be all stiff and formal like they're waiting for the stick to be removed from their ass. That one could put half the Green Moon to shame."
Godfrey, the Maltese, somehow managed to look embarrassed on Jan's behalf, his tiny head swiveling away from his owner with a distinctly human expression of secondhand awkwardness.
Fatima just shook her head. "Reluctantly, I concede the point. She is quite beautiful."
The judge, whose shadowed face had tilted at the sudden disruption, raised a hand. "Is this—"
"Alban did it," Ben snapped, stepping forward, his jaw tight with fury. "He cast a spell on them. That's not—this isn't—" He gestured helplessly at Mandy, who had just peeled Jess's jacket off and was mouthing along her collarbone with a desperate fervor. "This isn't her."
Alban's lips curled into a thin, cruel smile. "The court should see the true nature of these mortals. Vile, animalistic, driven by base urges—"
"Objection," Mara said, rising, her voice sharp as a blade. "This is an outrageous manipulation of the proceedings. The court should—"
"Silence." The judge's voice cut through the chaos like a whip. They leaned forward, studying the scene unfolding on the courtroom floor with an inscrutable expression. "The witness will continue. This is... instructive."
Jess had somehow managed to get her shoes off, and Mandy's shirt was already gone, leaving her in a simple black bra. Jess's hands were cupping Mandy's breasts, thumbs circling her nipples through the thin fabric, and Mandy had her thigh wedged between Jess's legs, grinding against her with desperate, shameless need.
"Oh my God," Ben muttered, pressing his palm to his forehead. "This is not—this is so not—"
"You gotta admit," Maryam whispered to Kim, "Mandy's got good taste. That agent's a knockout."
Kim, whose face was carefully blank, didn't respond. But her hazel eyes tracked the two women with an intensity that suggested she was filing away details for later consideration.
The judge, meanwhile, was watching with something that might have been amusement. "The court will note for the record that the spell cast by the messenger Alban appears to compel behavior rather than illuminate truth. Admissible, perhaps, in certain contexts, but"—they paused, and a ghost of a smile crossed their lips—"damning, if the information revealed proves true."
Jess gasped as Mandy's hand slid between her legs, pressing against the fabric of her slacks. Her head fell back, and she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Alban—" she gasped out, the words punched from her lungs between shuddering breaths. "Alban's been—working with—both courts—"
Mandy's fingers, unbuttoning Jess's pants. The sound of a zipper. Shocked murmurs raced through the gallery.
"—secret meetings—New Orleans—and—" Jess cried out as Mandy's hand slipped beneath the waistband of her panties, finding her slick and ready, the spell having done its work thoroughly, mercilessly. "—and the Seelie—he's got—Liriel's backing—they want a—war—"
"A war?" the judge repeated, their voice sharpening.
"-between—the courts—" Jess collapsed against a table, her back arching as Mandy pumped into her with two fingers, the wet sounds audible in the suddenly silent chamber. "Oh fuck—yes—that's—Alban wants—the old—fractures—"
Ben was bright red, his hands clenched at his sides. Rick had a hand over his eyes, but Mandy could see gaps between his fingers. Stacy, beside him, was watching with a completely unreadable expression.
Mandy, still caught in the spell, had yanked Jess's pants down to her ankles and dropped to her knees. Jess's thighs trembled. The Green Moon agents in the room—Jan, Fatima, Kim—recognized the Power of Exposure when it was being wielded by accident, by instinct, by sheer desperate need.
Jess, only a Golden Wand with Subtle Glamour, had no defense.
Mandy's tongue, hot and seeking, found her core. Jess screamed, her hands clawing at the wooden table edge, and the sound echoed through the stone chamber.
"Fuck," Mai breathed, her blue eyes wide. "That's—that's a live feed my viewers would pay for."
Felicity slapped her arm. "Mai!"
"What? I'm just saying."
The judge raised a hand, and a quill appeared from nowhere, scribbling impossibly fast across a page of glowing parchment. "The information revealed by the Golden Wand agent, though compelled, bears investigation. Continue, messenger." Their gaze swung to Alban, who had gone very still. "And perhaps you would like to explain these accusations."
Alban's jaw worked. "The woman is writhing in carnal frenzy. Her words are meaningless."
"Her words are very clear," the judge countered. "She mentions a wager between the courts. She mentions your involvement. This is a very specific accusation, delivered at a very specific moment." Their head tilted. "I find it notable."
Mandy had Jess on the table now, on her back, and was pulling her slacks off entirely, leaving her in nothing but a soaked pair of black panties and her Golden Wands jacket, which had been shoved up around her armpits. Mandy's own skirt had been discarded somewhere, and she was straddling Jess's thigh, grinding down with desperate need, her own arousal visibly dampening the fabric of her underwear.
"Aemelia," Alban hissed, turning to the silver-haired elf who had swept in with such fury, "you cannot believe these lies—"
"I believe," Aemelia said coldly, with each syllable a frostbitten dart, "that I am tired of being used as a pawn in your schemes. You seek a war, Alban? You seek to throw the courts into conflict?" Her lips curled in a sneer that looked as though it lacked any trace of affection. "I want no part in your ambitions."
"Aemelia!" Alban's voice cracked. "We were supposed to be allies. I was helping you—"
"Helping me?" Aemelia's laugh was a sound like shattered ice. "Helping me by dragging my name through courts and accusations, by claiming that I wanted my daughter returned to me?" Her head snapped toward Calista, who had risen to her feet, her silver hair haloed by torchlight. "I want nothing. I was a means to an end, and I am done being used."
Fatima raised her hand, and the gesture was so casual, so benign, that half the courtroom missed it. But the judge's eyes dimmed as they noticed, and they pointed a thin finger at her. "The Green Moon initiate wishes to speak?"
Fatima rose, her dark eyes fixed on Aemelia, her voice calm and measured. "I think it's time we cleared up something, Aemelia. You've spent decades blaming me for the death of your brother, Markus."
Aemelia's face had gone white. "You—you killed him—"
"I didn't." Fatima spread her hands. "I used the Power of Exposure on him, yes. I used it to make him confess, to the whole room, that he'd been planning to murder you himself. That he'd been siphoning your magical abilities for years, building up enough strength to consume your life force when the time was right." Her voice lowered, and there was no cruelty in it, just a tired truth. "He told everyone, Aemelia. He told the room how much he hated you, how he'd plotted for centuries, how he'd been waiting for the perfect moment. And then you, outraged, killed him. You didn't let him finish. You didn't want him to. And in the chaos, it was easier to blame me."
The courtroom was utterly silent. Even Mandy, mid-grind, seemed to pause, her head coming up, her eyes glazed but listening.
"Hank," Fatima continued, tilting her head toward her husband, "would you like to tell the court how many of my 'legendary kills' were actually me?"
Hank shrugged, his eyes twinkling with a kind of sad, rueful humor. "Well, let's see. Elsbeth of Antwerp? Died in a horse-riding accident. Fatima wasn't even there."
"Lord Penhurst?" Hank scratched his chin. "Choked on a fish bone. We were two countries away."
"The Harrow Witch?" He looked at Fatima. "Honestly, she tripped on a stair and broke her neck. We were just in the wrong place at the right time. And Jan tends to exaggerate.”
Jan looked vaguely offended, her expression crumbling like a stage set, while Godfrey cast a skeptical look at Jan from his place in the crook of her arm before flicking his gaze to Fatima and Hank, his tiny dog eyes silently communicating an unmistakable “oh, honey, no.”
Jan shrugged, not even an ounce of discretion in the movement. "I'm a storyteller. The truth just wasn't dramatic enough."
"What?" Ben demanded, his face a stone-cold façade, and his tone matched it. "When, exactly, did you all abandon the 'be boring' strategy?"
Rick, standing beside Stacy, glanced at his sister's boyfriend, deadpan. "Probably around the time the prosecutor decided to put a pair of statues in the witness stand."
Stacy, her arm looped through Rick's, gave a patient shrug. "Jan is incapable of being boring anyway."
Jan spread her hands, as if that settled it. "Accurate."
The judge had not blinked once through the entire exchange. The effect was deeply unsettling. Then, very slowly, they turned their head toward Alban, who had gone pale as milk.
"This is a circus," Alban hissed. "This is—this is not justice!"
"All evidence suggests," the judge said, in a voice like the draw of a cell door, "that you, Alban, are trying to purchase a war with two courts. The accusation is damning, and I am inclined to permit further testimony."
Alban's face twisted, and he reached into his robes, his long fingers emerging with a gleaming silver object, a rod, no, a key, an impossible length of metal inscribed along its shaft with thin lines that gleamed like captured moonlight. A wave of energy pulsed from it.
"The Key of Shared Breath," he snarled. "You all think you can dismantle my work with testimony? Let us see how well this court handles the Unmaking." He lifted the key high, and a shadow began to spread from it, the torches flickering as if a great wind was rising. "I will feed the Williamson mortals to the hunger of the deep stone, and your precious court will be seen as the place where justice was devoured!"
The words echoed. The atmosphere in the chamber turned heavy with dread. Dozens of attendees flinched, shrank, braced.
Only Mike's voice came from the stone statue, and it was tinged with bemusement. "Hold on. Did you just say the Unmaking—do you mean Roger?"
Alban froze, the key halfway through its intricate descent, his expression a portrait of pure disorientation.
Casey chimed in, warm and conversational, somehow from a mouth made of living rock. "Oh yes, we met him during that one trip to the auction house in 2043. Lovely fellow. A bit lonely, really. Mike had a sit-down with him—gave him advice. He likes being called Roger. It gave him a bit of purpose."
"You can't just—" Alban tried, but Mike cut him off, his tone light and easy.
"That was a good afternoon for him, I think. We suggested he try being human for a while, instead of just a disembodied hunger that goes around eating the souls of petrified mortals. He seemed interested."
A middle-aged man in the third row, who had previously been nondescript to the point of obscurity, stood up and removed a fedora. He looked entirely average, save for a kind of oddly compelling candour to his face. He had some five-o'clock shadow, a gentle smile, and wore a cheap corduroy jacket over a shirt with a coffee stain on the collar.
"Yes, well," he said, a little sheepishly, "I tried the ice-cream thing. There's a particular stall in the Everglades that makes a mean coconut sorbet. I have to say, it's much more delicious than the souls of petrified mortals. It... well, it kind of puts them to shame, really."
He turned to Judy, his smile turning a touch bashful, and the flirting was so clumsy, so lost in the sheer novelty of corporeal form, that even the judge looked profoundly, ineffably disturbed. "Are you, um, married? Or perhaps just, you know, considering a dalliance with a reformed soul-consuming entity?"
Casey's voice rang out, canary-bright. "Give him a chance, Judy! He's a sweetheart. He just needed a hobby."
Judy's composure shattered into a startled laugh, and she held up a hand, half-warning and half-delighted. "I—what—this is—"
Alban collapsed. The key clattered from his fingers and skittered across the stone floor, ringing like a bell. He sat there, limbs askew, face a mask of bewildered impudence, as if his brain had been yanked out through his ear.
"Roger," Mike called out, warm and pleased. "Good to see you again, pal. Sorry about the circumstances. I'd shake your hand, but, you know."
"I understand completely," Roger the Unmaking said, and there was genuine warmth in his voice. "Stone does tend to have that effect, doesn't it? I should have said something sooner. It's good to see you both, even if you're, uh, looking a little stiff."
"Ha!" Casey barked. "Stiff! I'm in a statue and I'm still funnier than half this courtroom."
Mandy, meanwhile, had finally, mercifully, begun to surface from the spell. Her eyes cleared as she found herself straddling Jess, who was gasping, the manila envelope clutched to her chest.
The thumb drive was in Mandy's hand before she'd consciously decided to take it. She pried the envelope open, her fingers slick, shaking, and pulled out the slim piece of plastic.
"Mai!" she called, her voice hoarse. "Catch."
She tossed it. Mai caught it with the casual ease of a woman who'd spent her childhood dodging dragons and deluge, and passed it to Felicity, who had already summoned Jeeves from her bag. The little floating sphere hovered, glowing blue, and Felicity fitted the thumb drive into a port. Jeeves's holographic projectors kicked to life, and a massive, blue-tinged image flickered in the air above the court.
It was video. Grainy, but unmistakable. Alban, in the same dark suit, meeting with a hooded figure in a New Orleans courtyard. A second meeting. A third. The audio crackled, but Jess's voice had patched through: "—faction leaders from both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. We captured this last week."
The courtroom gasped. And not just because, in that same moment, Mandy's deft fingers gave Jess one more devastating climax, a finale that ripped through her with a raw, ragged moan.
The judge's gavel came down again, sharp and final.
"Mister Alban," the judge intoned, "you have exactly one minute to explain why I should not have you unmade—metaphorically, of course—before this court finds you in contempt of reality itself."
Alban opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
Aemelia's voice cut through the silence, quiet and cold. "I demand to know," she said, her eyes fixed on Alban with barely restrained venom, "why I am being forced to ally with the friends of the woman who killed my brother."
Fatima's hand remained in the air, calm as still water. "Because, Aemelia, your brother was planning to murder you, and I gave you the truth too soon for your comfort. I'm sorry for the pain it caused, but I'm not sorry for stopping him." She paused, and her voice softened somehow. "You didn't kill him for justice, Aemelia. You killed him for rage. And you chose to blame me, rather than yourself."
The silence stretched, brittle as dry ice.
"Fuck," one of the lawyers whispered, somewhere in the back.
The judge, who had seen many, many things in their long existence, looked at Alban, then at Aemelia, then at the stone statues of Mike and Casey, then at the two women slowly disentangling themselves from the wreckage of the table, and made a decision.
"Stop," the judge said, in a voice like grinding stone, "stop this entire proceedings." They raised their head. "This court will take a brief recess." The gavel came down one final time. "And when we return, Mister Alban, you will explain everything."
The gavel's echo faded into a murmur of whispers and shifting robes, the recess settling over the courtroom like a fog. Mandy's hands were still shaking as she helped Jess to her feet, the other woman's legs barely holding her weight.
"I've got you," Mandy murmured, bending to gather Jess's discarded slacks and jacket. The charcoal fabric was crumpled, damp in places, but Jess took them with trembling fingers, her dark eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance.
"That was..." Jess started, then stopped, her throat working.
"Yeah." Mandy couldn't meet her gaze. "I'm sorry. That wasn't—I didn't—"
"I know." Jess's voice was hoarse, but steady. "Alban's spell. Not your fault." She pulled her slacks up, fumbling with the zipper, her knuckles white. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to need to lie down for about a week after this."
Mandy found herself letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. A laugh, almost. "Yeah. That's fair."
The weight of the courtroom pressed in around them—dozens of eyes, some sympathetic, some scandalized, some simply curious. Mandy felt the heat creeping up her neck as she turned, scanning the crowd until she found Ben. He was standing where she'd left him, his arms crossed, his jaw tight, but there was something soft in his eyes that cut through the tension.
She crossed the floor in three quick strides, closing the distance between them, and kissed him. Deep. Thorough. She poured everything she couldn't say into that kiss—the apology, the desperation, the fear, the love. Her hands cupped his face, holding him there like he was the only solid ground left in the world.
"I'm sorry," she breathed against his lips. "That wasn't—I would never—"
"I know." Ben's voice was rough, but his hands came up to rest on her hips, steadying her. "I know you wouldn't do that in a courtroom full of elves, Mandy. Not unless something made you."
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, finding nothing but understanding there. "I'm more than willing to let you have a go with Jess later, if you'd like."
The words came out before she could stop them, a half-joke, half-offering born of the adrenaline still thrumming through her veins. Ben blinked, momentarily stunned, and Mandy's hand drifted down, cupping the front of his jeans. The sharp intake of breath he let out told her everything she needed to know about his answer.
"We'll talk about that later," he said, but his voice had gone thick, and she could feel him hardening under her palm. "Right now, I think your parents need you."
He gestured toward the judge's dais, where the recess was ending—murmurs of movement rippling through the gallery as the gavel came down once more. The judge's shadowed face surveyed the courtroom, lingering on Alban for a long, weighted moment.
"Mister Alban," the judge intoned, their voice carrying a razor-sharp edge, "we will now hear your explanation."
Alban rose, but his composure had shattered. The wildness in his eyes had given way to something hollow, something that already knew it was beaten. He opened his mouth, closed it, and for a moment, Mandy almost felt sorry for him.
Then she remembered her parents, frozen in stone, and any sympathy evaporated.
"The plan," Alban said, his voice barely above a whisper, "was for an Unseelie agent to petrify the mortals Michael and Casey Williamson. On mortal ground. In violation of a dozen treaties and compacts signed between the courts and the human realm."
The courtroom went silent. Absolute. The kind of silence that could shatter bones.
"The Seelie Court would rule it unlawful," Alban continued, each word dragging out of him like a confession torn from flesh. "They would demand reparations. The Unseelie would rise in outrage at the perceived insult. And war would break out between the courts."
Someone in the gallery gasped. A dozen voices rose in whispers, but the judge's hand cut through it all.
"And the mortals?" the judge asked, their voice deceptively calm.
Alban's eyes dropped. "If they perished as a result... it served them right. For corrupting an elf child with mortal ethics, morality, and culture."
The words hung there, ugly and poisonous. Mandy felt her hands curl into fists, felt her nails bite into her palms. Beside her, Ben shifted, ready to move, ready to protect, even though there was nothing to protect against.
And then, from the stone witness stand, Mike's voice rang out like a thunderclap.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" His tone swung from disbelief to outrage, his voice carrying through every corner of the cavernous chamber. "That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard in my entire life! And believe me, I've made a bunch of stupid ones myself."
Casey's voice followed, tinged with a dry, weary amusement. "He's not wrong, honey. I mean, what was the endgame here? You petrify us, start a war, and then... what? Everyone's happy? Nobody dies? You're all going to hold hands and sing songs about the glorious conflict?"
"There was no endgame," the judge observed, their voice flat and cold. "Only ambition."
"Right!" Casey's voice cracked, but not with anger—with something deeper, something that made Mandy's chest ache. "And you were willing to start a war over it. Over us. Two people who just wanted to raise their kids and live their lives."
The temperature in the room fluctuated, a palpable shift as Casey's words sank in.
"Let me tell you something, Alban." Casey's voice trembled, carrying the weight of tears that wouldn't fall from her stone face. "My husband and I—we should never have been punished for loving an abandoned baby. We took in a child who was left on our porch like a bundle of laundry. We didn't ask questions. We didn't need to. We just... loved her."
Aemelia, standing near the back, went very still. Her silver eyes fixed on Casey's stone face, unreadable.
"We worried over doctor's bills and bad report cards," Casey continued, her voice cracking like thin ice. "We stayed up nights when Calista was sick, when the school called because she'd accidentally set a book on fire in the library. We held her when those kids taunted her for that week when she discovered glamour and accidentally gave herself a pink, fluffy cat's tail."
Calista made a soft sound, something between a laugh and a sob. Rick wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"We loved our children so much," Casey's voice broke, then steadied. "And I have so much pride in the adults they've become. Rick—my sweet, awkward boy who bakes bread like it's a love language and protects his sisters with everything he has. Mandy—my brilliant girl who solves problems and never panics, no matter how bad things get. Beth—my little wild child with her big heart and her sharp eye, always ready to capture the moment."
Beth, tears streaming down her face, raised her camera and snapped a photo of the statue of her parents. The shutter click echoed in the silent room.
"And Calista." Casey's voice caressed the name. "My abandoned baby. The one who's devoted to the people who showed her love, not the ones who birthed her and left her on a doorstep. Even when she set fires in the house before she learned to control her magic. Even when she was different, even when she was scared, even when she didn't know who she was supposed to be. She was ours."
The tears were flowing openly now. Judy pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, her eyes glistening. Rick and his sisters were crying, silent streams running down their faces as they held each other. Even Hank, tough as he was, was dabbing at his eyes with a suspicious cough.
Felicity had buried her face in Bruce's shoulder. Mai's usual adventurous sparkle had gone bright with unshed tears. Kim's jaw was tight, her hazel eyes shimmering. Maryam was flat-out sobbing, her baseball cap clutched in both hands.
Jan, Fatima, even the judge—the judge—had something wet in their eyes, though they would deny it to the end of time.
Roger the Unmaking, standing behind Judy, wiped at his face with the back of his hand and looked profoundly, uncharacteristically moved. "That's," he started, then cleared his throat, "that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."
The judge raised their head, visibly composing themselves, and turned to Alban. "Mister Alban. You will turn them back."
Alban's face was a mask of defeat. The fight had gone out of him entirely; his shoulders slumped under the weight of his own failure. "I will," he said, his voice sounding hollow as a bell. "I will."
He raised his hand, and the green light that had been poison now turned soft and gold, a warm shimmer that wrapped around the stone figures of Mike and Casey Williamson like a cocoon of spring sunlight. The stone surface rippled like water freezing in reverse, the gray giving way to living color.
Mike Williamson stood there in his rumpled best suit, his tie crooked, his shaggy brown-grey hair a mess. Casey was beside him in her cocktail dress, the same outfit she'd been wearing when she was petrified at Beth's photography exhibition almost two days ago.
And then they blinked.
"Oh," Casey said, lifting her hand and flexing her fingers. "Oh, it's good to feel my face again."
Mike turned to his wife with a look of pure, unguarded relief. "You're you," he said, his voice cracking. "You're back. You're actually back."
"I'm back, honey." Casey reached up and straightened his tie, the gesture so familiar, so home, that Mandy felt the tears finally break over. "I'm right here."
They didn't get a chance to say anything else. Their children mobbed them first—Rick, Mandy, Beth, and Calista, all crashing into them at once, a tangle of arms and tears and incoherent words of love and relief. Then Judy was there, then Stacy and Roger, then Jan and Fatima, then Hank, then everyone else.
It was chaos. Beautiful, messy, overwhelming chaos in the middle of an elven courtroom. And Mandy wouldn't have traded it for the world.
Aemelia watched from the edge of the crowd, her expression unreadable. She turned to Alban, her voice so cold it could have frozen fire.
"You had better hope," she said, each word a dagger, "that I am satisfied with the judge's sentence. Or else I will give you a much harsher penalty myself."
Alban didn't respond. He couldn't. Aemelia turned, her silver hair catching the torchlight, and swept out of the courtroom in a gust of frosty air. The alligator and the bear fell into step behind her, lumbering shadows at her heels.
And somewhere in the middle of that beautiful, messy reunion, Ben caught Mandy's eye. The way she was tucked against her mother's side, her face wet with tears, her hand gripping Ben's. The promise in her gaze was for him alone.
Later, she would ask him if he wanted to explore that earlier offer. Later, he would take her up on it.
Right now, there was just this—the warmth of family, the relief of survival, and the knowledge that they had, somehow, impossibly, won.